One Hot (Almost) Mama
by signelchan
Summary: Kaede gets treated to shopping for clothes and falls a little bit more in love with her curvy, not-quite-mom body.


There were so many perfect outfits on the racks that Kaede wanted to pick out and try on, but she was restraining herself and limiting her selections to only things that would fit the changing of the season. She couldn't realistically expect to _need_ all sorts of summer-themed clothes when the weather started getting colder, and since Shuichi had told her that he could buy her as much as she felt she needed she didn't want to take advantage of that kindness. It was hard to pass up the adorable tank-tops that had cute pictures and saying on them, but she knew that if she picked one up, she'd take them all, and with him standing nearby keeping an eye on her she couldn't even give in slightly to that temptation.

The choices she made were difficult, but eventually she made her selections and went over to the dressing rooms to try everything on. She was greeted by a friendly attendant who counted her items and escorted her into one of the stalls, making sure that the door latched closed behind her before she started undressing. But before she even got to that part, she had to take a seat on the little chair there in the stall to collect herself, hanging up everything she'd grabbed so that none of it touched the ground. "I can't say I'm going to miss getting so winded," she remarked, leaning back against the wall with her eyes closed as she took a few deep breaths, "but I am totally going to miss being able to wear all these cute clothes and be able to fill them out so well."

She arched her back as much as she could, feeling her tight muscles stretch up and down her sides at the same time that she could feel her shirt rolling up over her large stomach, reminding her just how tight what she was wearing had been. One of her eyes cracked open and she looked at her reflection in the mirror across the way from where she was sitting, getting a glance at how she looked to be so, so much bigger than she knew she was just because of how far she was arching. That drove her to sit back up, making the perspective a little less wonky to look at, but still quite different than the body she'd had and cared for for so many years before.

"I probably shouldn't keep Shuichi out there waiting for me forever," she said after staring at her reflection for a few moments, her hands fidgeting with the edge of her shirt and contemplating both pulling it back down and taking it off completely. The latter choice was the one she made, as she needed to be able to try the other clothes on without too much in their way, and once she had tossed the outstretched tank-top that had long since been deemed too small into the corner (immediately regretting the decision, because bending down to get it was _not_ happening), she stood up and once again found herself lost in staring at herself and her beautifully large body.

While she would never say that she had been a skinny girl, she had definitely been someone who could wear form-fitting clothing and look like she had the figure of a model, with a chest and hips that gave her a bit of an hourglass look. She had always had a bit of pudge on those hips, though, and people had enjoyed poking her soft stomach because it wasn't exactly pure muscle, and that wasn't even getting into her thighs that had always been capable of ripping through pants and rubbing together at all times. But she'd been happy like that, and she wouldn't have changed a thing about herself—except the moment she found out that she was pregnant, she knew that everything she loved about her body was going to be flipped upside down.

She'd heard horror stories about the uncomfortable changes, or about the women who spent the whole time getting sick and losing the shape of their bodies that they'd been used to, in exchange for carrying their unborn child in what looked like a balloon taped to a stick-like body, and she was hopeful that she wouldn't end up like that. It wasn't that Kaede enjoyed being able to say she was curvy, but rather she liked the character that being a bigger girl had always given her, and she didn't want to lose it. Thankfully for her, she wasn't saddled with the illness and the inability to eat that she'd been warned about; in fact, she was cursed with quite the opposite problem, and despite everything she found herself being able to go a couple hours without thinking about eating, and thus choosing to do so.

Her snacks weren't ever large, and she was probably only eating about as much as she usually had anyway, but the quality of the food that she was picking for her frequent meals was not exactly the healthiest, and so she set herself on a path that wasn't somewhere she should have been going. Not helping matters was the fact that her doctor insisted that she wasn't doing anything wrong, because all of her measurements were within what was deemed acceptable, as well as the fact that she had the biggest pushover in the world for a husband, who bent to her every request and demand. If she wanted to eat ice cream in the middle of the night, without a doubt Shuichi was getting it for her, and that made it that much harder to not give into those supposed cravings.

But looking at herself, she couldn't tell that she'd really put on any sort of weight that wasn't related back to the baby somehow. Of course, she knew that'd change once she'd given birth to the baby and she wasn't immediately back to how she was before—but that wasn't going to be a problem, because she'd honestly fallen in love with the confidence her larger size had given her, and if she carried that extra baby weight for the foreseeable future that was going to be fine by her. That was a big part of why she was so eager to get to buy new clothes, aside from the fact that autumn was coming fast and the clothes she'd last worn in chilly weather were long since wearable. She fully intended to be wearing those things for a while, and so she needed them to fit nicely and be cute at the same time.

Shaking her head, Kaede got herself out of her thoughts and went to try on the first shirt she'd brought inside with her, which was a light purple cardigan with half-sleeves that looked like it would be the single most adorable thing on her body once she got it on. Getting her head and arms through it wasn't a problem, and it was somewhat snug on her chest but that was understandable and could be looked past, but the real challenge was going to come in if it fit over her stomach the way it currently was. She was nearly about to pop, her due date with that baby just a few weeks away, and she knew that if she could get the shirt to work for the not-quite month she had left until she'd be somewhat smaller again, she'd be able to make it work forever. It ended up being tight, but nowhere near as tight as the shirt she'd come in wearing, and it was long enough that the very end of it was able to hang loose over the lower part of her hips.

"Would you look at that?" she remarked, bringing a hand to her face as she admired herself and the shirt in the mirror. "I'm so gorgeous in this! I should get nothing but shirts like this, in all different colors, they're cute and comfortable and I can make them work, easy peasy!" If she wasn't so physically unable, she would have bounced in her excitement at her attractiveness, but her feet were planted firmly on the ground and there was no way she was going to be jumping anywhere. "Guess that's one shirt down, let's try on the others!"

Before she took it off, she placed her other hand on the top of her very round stomach, giving it a firm pat. "Thanks so much for cooperating today, baby! I don't know what I'd do if you were causing a fuss in there, the last thing I want is you kicking and punching and ruining my shopping trip!" She giggled, moving on to getting the shirt off so she could put on the next one, but she once again stopped while she was standing there in her bra and her clearly ill-fitting maternity pants, turning herself from side to side to look at herself.

She'd always had a tiny bit that liked to hang over the sides of her pants, and that had not changed, even though the reason for that particular overhang was more because the pants were too small than anything else. Besides, that was almost easy to ignore when there was her stomach to look at, which felt kind of like she had a watermelon taped to her front at all times, and was striped similarly to match. It was a bit obnoxious to have to work around sometimes, but it really wasn't all that large, especially since she could easily lace her hands around the front and not have to stretch to do so (something else she'd heard horror stories about). Any time she'd even start to feel bad about how she looked, she'd remind herself that she was growing an entire person there inside her, and that little person needed all the space they could get, but it was a rare occasion that she thought anything less than that she looked amazing and wished she could keep that curvy and confident body all the time.

Eventually, she got the next shirt on, which was just a long-sleeved shirt that was rather plain, but trying it on was a necessity to make sure that it did fit. This one was a lot looser than the previous one was, and her mind instantly went to how that meant she had _room_ just in case anything happened in the future, a thought that set her off into a giggle fit. One child was completely unexpected and unplanned and something they were rolling with because any other option didn't feel right; if there were any subsequent ones those would have to be discussed heavily before they were conceived, and at that point she didn't want to even think about having those talks. As gracefully and eagerly she'd stepped into her current role, she wasn't sure she'd be able to do it again, even if it would give her another chance to be as attractive as she was at the moment.

But those were thoughts to be having somewhere like in bed or in the shower, not half-dressed in the fitting room of the local mall's maternity store, and so once again Kaede focused on why she was in there and tried on the rest of the shirts she'd picked out. All of them fit somewhere in line with the first two, which meant that she was naturally going to get all of them, but her favorite of the bunch was the bright pink sweater that she was going to wear every day she possibly could, just because of how loud the color was. "This baby is immediately going to think I'm the most embarrassing mom ever," she said with a laugh after putting the sweater back on its hook and hanging it with the other shirts, only to have to squat down to pick up the shirt she'd come inside wearing. Just like she'd thought, picking it up was not something that would've happened had she tried to bend over like a normal person, but the weight of her stomach was still almost enough to topple her over before she got the shirt in her hand, and so she had to rethink what she was doing.

It required using her foot and getting a little creative about putting the shirt on the seat, so that she could get it from there, but soon she had her tank-top back on and was wiggling her way out of her pants to try on the rest of the clothes. The beauty of the pants she could get was that they were all super stretchy, but even that elastic had its limits and she needed to replace the ones that weren't really in the best shape anymore. Trying those on was more a matter of making sure they weren't too long, and that the inner thighs were structured enough to withstand her legs rubbing together every time she walked, and only two of the five pairs she'd brought with her fit both of those conditions. Even still, two pairs of pants and a half-dozen shirts was already an expensive trip, and that wasn't even factoring in any duplicates she would inevitably get.

Shuichi _really _must have loved her if he was putting up with all of her pregnancy-minded nonsense right then, but she knew that he had the money to support this dire wardrobe update. She was going to thank him the moment she saw him, which was going to come as soon as she was once again properly dressed, wearing the clothes she'd walked into the store with, but before she left the stall she found herself looking at her reflection in the mirror once more. In such tight clothing, her body looked like it was even bigger than it normally did, which was a difference from how it had been when before she'd gotten pregnant and she'd wear tight things to make herself look skinnier but curvier. Now her biggest curve was her swollen stomach, overshadowing her still-huge hips and her quite busty chest, and she was so much happier being able to take up more space but not be looked down on for it. With the clothes she'd brought into the stall with her sorted into what she was getting and what she wasn't, she left the fitting room and handed the unwanted items to the attendant, who was happy to take them. The only thing that was said between them was the attendant complimenting how beautiful she was before wishing her a good rest of her day, and that little interaction was enough to set Kaede's heart fluttering. She _was_ beautiful, and she knew it, and she was happy that others saw that as well.

"Oh, it's about time you finished up in there," Shuichi said once he saw Kaede coming towards him, her grinning from ear to ear. "I thought maybe something had happened, and that you were too panicked to ask for help or—"

"There's no need to worry, everything's perfectly fine!" she replied, pushing all of the clothes she'd decided on getting into his open arms, before turning to go get some more similar items. "I'm almost done, I promise, and then we can go home and relax. All this shopping is really tiring, you know?"

"—right, sorry for overthinking things. Going home sounds nice right about now, especially since…" His voice trailed off as he watched her turn around to go back to the racks she'd been searching before, his eyes focused entirely on the slow, heavy sway of her body as she took her steps. Watching her move was hypnotic, and he had to carefully adjust how he was holding everything she'd given him to make sure he didn't start a scene there in the store. Being so enamored with her was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place, he wasn't going deny that, but he could at least control himself a little in public. She was completely irresistible, not just to herself but to him as well, and he'd do whatever he could to make sure she was happy the way she was.

Even if it meant spending way too much money on clothes that she might not have been wearing for much longer.

* * *

**A/N: hi I wrote this like a month ago? because someone told me that I needed to write a super positive body image thing about Kaede (because I guess on AO3 there's a super, uh, not positive thing about her body?), and so I did it and idk why I didn't post it before now, but here it is!**


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